


a light, to guide you.

by rikkitikki



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 16:13:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4355702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rikkitikki/pseuds/rikkitikki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't know how to help him." Ragged, dark-eyed, Dorian drug his fingers through his hair. "<i>Fasta vass,</i> nothing I do <i>helps.</i> They broke something in him and I don't know how to fix it."</p><p>"Well," Bull replied, "you can probably start with telling him he doesn't <i>need</i> to be fixed."</p><p>After a harrowing month in the hands of bandits, the Inquisitor tries to pick up the pieces. Dorian just tries to hold their relationship together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a light, to guide you.

It had been a month since they took him.

Now, crouched in the muck of the Storm Coast, surveying the slaver camp, the longest month of Dorian's life had come to an end. Varric took out another straggler or sentry with breathtaking precision whenever the storm picked up, smothering the noise of his shots; so far he had managed seven, working his way from the edges to the heart of the camp. Eight. Although the lion's share of Inquisition forces waited nearby, that quiet, unerring accuracy was one of the reasons Dorian had chosen him for the infiltration. They crouched close enough to share body heat, soaked and shivering in the sea-storm rain.

A month. ( _Chuck,_ barely audible even with Bianca in his ear. Nine.) They'd stolen him away during a routine trip to oversee work in the Hinterlands, when his handful of Inquisition soldiers had been too busy chugging rounds of Dwarven ale - that someone had been _generous_ enough to buy for the wonderful Inquisitor and his men - to notice. He'd told Dorian and the rest of them to stay at Skyhold, rest up from their recent trip to the Wastes. It was just the Hinterlands. Practically the safest sliver of Ferelden nowadays, wasn't it?

And Dorian had let him go, still picking quillbeast barbs out of his legs. _Moronic._

But he'd tracked them down, hadn't he? Broke his back looking for the "merchants" who'd been seen with a pale-haired elf, dragged himself across half of Ferelden to trace their steps, and left a trail of dead and/or maimed slavers behind him - all to get right here, right now, watching Varric take out the last sentry. (Ten.) No one could raise the alarm now, at least not in time - no one could kill Lavellan before they could reach him.

"Ready, Sparkles?"

"Let's move. That house is their center of command - if he's anywhere in this Maker-forsaken hole, he'll be there." Dorian stood, his knees cracking. An hour now, spent kneeling in the rocks and wiping out patrols. "Stay low."

"Not gonna be a problem."

Despite his nerves, Dorian cracked an unsteady smile. Varric met it, his crooked grin nowhere near reaching his eyes, and vaulted the low rocks they'd used as cover. Someone was shouting about bodies in the distance, but it was far too late - Varric caught him in the chest with a bolt, and before the man behind him could even raise his bow, Dorian laid him out with a blast of lightning, vaulting his body to catch the door before it could close. Their patience had paid off; it was a straight shot all the way to the house, and the voices at their back were few and far between. Varric stood in the doorway, his crossbow at the ready.

"Go on. I'll hold the line." _Chuck._ Eleven. A man fell from the roof of a crumbling barn, startling another few slavers out into the open. "Go get him."

Dorian was already through the door. He barely caught Varric's last words over the roar in his ears.

\--------

The farmhouse might have been quaint at some point, even cozy. Dorian turned it into an arena, the smell of burnt hair and charred flesh clinging to him as he tore down its occupants one by one. The last he chased down the cellar stairs, freezing him to the floor by his feet. When the man grabbed for his sword, Dorian brought his staff down on his wrist with a sick, entirely too satisfying _crack._

The man only managed the beginnings of a scream before Dorian's hand was around his throat, palm crackling with errant magic.

"Where is he?"

"I don't--"

A scream echoed in Dorian's ears, his palm burning against the man's throat.

"I'm sorry, did I interrupt you? Let me advise you that I am not to be _fucked with_ today." He kept the heat up, thumb and forefinger digging in behind the slaver's jaw. "You were saying?"

"D--downstairs. Go ahead, mage. Go get him." The man sneered in his face, tossing a worn set of keys at his feet. "Fair warning - you might not _want_ him anymore."

Dorian's blood ran cold, imagining all manner of horrors he might find just down the stairs. He only noticed the flame in his palm just in time, tearing his hand away from the man's throat before he could do any more damage. Charred skin stuck to his fingers; the stink of cooked blood filled his head.

"What have you done to him?"

The man was grasping at his scorched throat, blood in his teeth as he bared them.

"Taught him tricks. Lie down, beg. _Roll over._ "

It was all he could stand. With a wave of his hand, Dorian reduced the man to a human candlestick, screams echoing in his head as he stumbled down the last flight of stairs. Corypheus himself couldn't have stopped him on his way to the last room in the cellar, the stink of gore in his nose and blood and in his mouth, the inside of his cheek aching. He had no idea when exactly he'd bitten himself.

_Mahanon._

\---------

As it turned out, he didn't need the keys. Dorian simply burned the hinges off the door, shouldering it out of his way into a dark, cramped, musty little room. Squinting through the dark, he could barely make out a shape near the back. It moved occasionally. Ragged, quiet breathing filled the room when Dorian's footsteps did not. A nearby torch burst into life at his beck, and the room swam with light.

Lavellan lay on a little bed in the corner, breathing slow, as if he were asleep, though the occasional wet cough said otherwise. His wrists were tied behind his back, and an iron clasp held him to the bed by his ankle - it had begun to eat into his skin, he'd worn it so long. As Dorian staggered closer, he saw miles of yellowing bruises, badly-healing bite marks across his nape, signs of old torture standing out on his skin. He didn't so much wear the dirty, oversized shirt as had it thrown across him.

 _Oh, no._ Dorian practically fell to his knees to get the shackles off, momentarily stuck when he saw the finger-mark bruises trailing along his legs, climbing up underneath the shirt. _Not that._

Not that. Not to _Mahanon,_ who argued with him about magical theory loud enough to get them kicked out of the library, who spoke with his hands and once knocked a bowl of searing hot stew into the Bull's lap by accident, who pulled Dorian down to the floor just to hold him, sometimes, _ma vhenan_ on his lips.

"Mahanon," Dorian rasped. He'd barely slept this past month, ate only what Cullen or the Bull or whoever could convince him offered - almost always broth or bread, nothing heavy enough to slow him down. It had been weeks since he'd seen a warm bed or touched a book, even longer since he'd managed a full conversation with anyone. This was the culmination of all his efforts - but he hadn't wanted it to happen like this. If he'd dreamed at all this past month, he would've dreamed of some clunky cell in a cave, killing the guards, Lavellan leaping into his arms. Everything being better again.

Now reality hit him, hands shaking as he found the keys. Some unspeakable thing had been done to the man he loved, and nothing was going to be as it had been.

Dorian dropped the shackles, briefly agonizing over the sick, infected wound. The heavy _clang_ of it hitting the floor seemed to snap Lavellan back to reality, shifting slightly across the splinters and soiled bedding. Dorian burned away the rope around his wrists, clumsily rubbing circulation back into them with his own numb hands. It wouldn't have been half as worrying if Lavellan jumped away from the touch, screamed at him, struck out at him. Anything.

He only lay there, waiting. When Dorian pulled back, unsure of what to do, Lavellan let out a long, faint sigh and rolled over, eyes fixed on the ground.

"Mahanon?" Dorian's voice sounded faint in his own ears, far away. It was someone else's voice, and these were someone else's hands, helping Lavellan sit up, hovering over his face. Someone had blackened his eye. More recently, someone else had split his lip. The shirt crumpled in his lap, and Maker, but he had so many fresh scars.

"Mahanon, please. It's Dorian." His voice cracked. "Please look at me."

Lavellan didn't look at him. Instead, he leaned in, chin on Dorian's shoulder, mouth against his neck. Stomach rolling, Dorian felt him cup him through his robes. Heard him force out a lifeless, mechanical moan.

"Oh, no. Oh Maker, Mahanon--"

Dorian fumbled for a once-broken, badly healing wrist, pulling Lavellan's hand away to gather him against his chest, fingers cupping gently through his matted hair. Was Lavellan shaking, or was it him? Did it matter?

"What have those animals done to you?" Lavellan laid limp in his arms, breathing shallowly. Dorian held him close, willing him back to life. "We're leaving. We're going _home,_ amatus. As far from here as possible."

 _Amatus._ The word hit Lavellan hard, his hands slowly, so slowly coming to rest on Dorian's arms. How many times had Dorian murmured it in his ear from behind, arms wrapped around his waist as Skyhold's winds whipped through their hair? Against the crown of his head, breathing hard, skin to skin all over? Over his temple, books cast aside as they sprawled across the library floor in the dead of night, trying not to get caught?

Lavellan gripped him hard, arms trembling from the effort, and let his head drop to Dorian's chest. Breathed him in. That first hiccup was all it took, and then he was choking - sobbing - _screaming_ into Dorian's storm-soaked robes, clinging to him like flotsam at sea. Eyes hot, Dorian held him close. He hardly even heard the footsteps.

"Place is clear, Dorian. Did you--" Varric crested the doorway, faltering as he saw them. Dorian met his eyes, shaking his head minutely. "...Shit."

He backed out of the room quietly, and not for the first time, Dorian was unspeakably thankful that the man had tact. He would be waiting outside, Dorian was sure, ready to go back for the reinforcements whenever they were ready. Varric made a habit and a hobby of being unpredictable, but he could always be counted on when needed.

"D-don't--" Lavellan sobbed, choking on the words, "--don't tell them. Don't tell anyone, I can't - I c-can't--"

"No one has to know."

Some would figure it out on their own, but Dorian couldn't help that. He wrapped the fallen shirt around Lavellan's shoulders, careful of the fresher burns and cuts.

"We'll find some clothes before we go back, hm?" Lavellan nodded against his neck, his shoulders shaking. "Half the Inquisition insisted on coming with us, you know. We've missed you, amatus."

Whether Lavellan answered with a laugh or a sob, Dorian couldn't tell.


End file.
